


an airport is a lonely place to be (at night)

by queenofcats



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Missing Persons, Potential death, Stranger Things AU, The Upside Down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 17:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12658188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofcats/pseuds/queenofcats
Summary: The door is open, with no one inside to lock the bolts. He pushes through the cloakroom into the classroom itself, feels shivers run down his spine as he sees four of the creatures feasting on a lump of flesh. Whether or not it was once human, Jean can't quite tell. He sees clouds of blood billowing out from it, the fat and skin writhing in the air as the rows upon rows of needle-like teeth shake and pull at it.He doesn't dare interrupt the feast, for fear he'll be next.





	an airport is a lonely place to be (at night)

**Author's Note:**

> tbh i don't think it's necessary that you've seen stranger things to read this.

It's somewhat quieter in this neck of the woods.

Even the squelch of mud, the crunch of twigs, is softer here. 

Jean wonders if perhaps he's stepped into some dream-world, one where the saturation sliders have been turned all the way down, the Gaussian blur turned up. His hair moves unnervingly in the languid path of the wind, he thinks for just a moment that there's someone behind him, touching him.

But he's alone. 

 

Like a moth drawn to the dingy fluorescent lighting of a cheap cafe, Jean finds himself in the woods again the next day. 

The trees seem darker, more hostile. Their faces are warped and growling at him, he traces the patterns of the bark to try and make them disappear. 

And then a piece breaks off. 

Black oozes out of it, like the drip of a leaking car. It's viscous, hangs from his fingertips where he'd unwittingly touched it. The smell is acrid, bitter, and he tries to swallow the taste away. 

Jean kneels, trying to see if the rot extends past that point, and his fingers scrape until he finds it, finds more. The bark pulls away easily, like the back panel of an old plastic toy. More of the slimy substance spills down across the grooves, like a deathly river that fears no dam. He watches in fascination as the burning smell invades his very being, as though even a shower won't be able to wash it away. 

Something special will happen because of this, of that he is sure. 

A coward would walk away, a coward would run home to cower behind the door and hope to dear God that the rot, the disease, won't find him. 

But Jean lost any sense of self-preservation a long time ago. 

He pulls at more of the bark.

 

Even when in bed, Jean can only think about the tree he half-destroyed, the tree that's now covered in the oily sheen of what must be death. 

The forest is the last place Marco was seen, maybe he fell to whatever sickness is spreading across the town. 

He must go back, he must. The pull is too strong to ignore, the rush of blood in his arms and legs is too much for him to stay still. 

The phone he keeps cradled in his hands is almost fully charged, the flashlight won't drain too much off of its battery. He makes sure to wrap up warmly enough to survive the bitter cold that sweeps the area, that seems to be creeping into his bones and chilling his heart. 

A knife, he thinks, just a small one. That's all he'd need in the event something went wrong, he hopes. 

 

There's more of the tree that's been taken off, not by human hands. Large scratches in the bark look animal, look almost hellish. He doesn't want to run into the monster behind it. 

Perhaps, by going through the hole, he's running straight towards it.

Jean kneels again, pokes his head through the large opening in the base of the tree, and decides he might as well see where it leads. The flashlight on his phone doesn't even reach the end of the path inside, and though he rarely believes in anything supernatural, he's willing to trust that this might not be a grief-induced hallucination. The bitter smell is enough to know that. 

It's colder still inside the tree, deathly silent and still like a airport at night. 

"A liminal space, I think it's called." he says aloud, hands and knees soaked through by the foul black slime that seems to be everywhere. "Maybe you're in a... a transitional state, Marco. 'Tween this world and somewhere else. Like an airport."

Thick vines drape across the roundness of the tunnel, though Jean isn't entirely sure they're plants. They move, very slowly, like eyes watching him. And for a moment, he thinks he does see eyes watching him, though the monster in front of him has none. Four flaps of skin open, the rows of sharp thin teeth, and the screeching noise is enough to make his heart stop. 

Maybe he'll see Marco. 

 

The creature falls flat on its side, squealing like a slaughtered pig, black and red blood oozing out of its mouth. Jean was not expecting that. 

"Run, if you know what's good for you." the man in front of him says. 

Jean begins to crawl forwards, though the man is not impressed. 

"Away from here, get away!" he growls, as the screeching sound echoes through the narrow tunnels. In his hands, a bloody knife.

"I-- I can't." Frozen with fear, Jean stalls until he thinks he might not live to regret that decision. 

The other man, though, he will. With arms as swift as gunshots, he takes care of the face-splitting demons that crowd around them both. He's standing, he's standing? The tunnel must be big enough to stand in. Jean takes his own knife and nearly drops it, fizzing limbs and a too-fast heartbeat pulsing in his ears. But when his shaky legs finally straighten up, he tries to help the other man, tries to slice the creatures up just as quickly. 

"Don't even try. Just take the tunnel on the right and go straight on til you see the sign." he grunts, the exhaustion clear in his voice. 

Jean is still, until the man shouts again. 

"Go! What the fuck are you waiting for?" 

He runs, barely remembering which way is left, which is right, whether he's going forwards or backwards. But he does it, stumbling over slowly-waking vines and squirted with pressurised gases of indeterminable origin. 

 

The sign, as it turns out, is a small cardboard rectangle attached to a popup tent. It reminds Jean of the homeless who live in the back-alleys nearby, the other lost inhabitants of the town. 

"This is like an airport..." he mutters. "There's usually homeless people in an airport."

He crawls inside, wanting to hide away from the hell-hounds that the other man had so far managed to destroy. He couldn't bear the thought that perhaps he'd caused the death of someone who seemed to be able to manage quite well here. Wherever 'here' was, anyway.

Battered notebooks, encrusted with grime and the ash that seemed a permanent feature of the air, lay strewn across the sleeping bag on the floor. Jean's limbs burn with exertion as he picks them up, his body having come down from the adrenaline rush he'd used to run so far, so fast.

The entries read like a diary, listing Day 1 to Day 754. 

"You've been here for over two years..." he says, leafing through the pages. He picks up on a few repeated elements, words and phrases that become as much of a staple in the books as the spatters of blood that turn the ink muddy and brown. 

He remembers now, he remembers that roughly two years ago, a local teacher had disappeared. His name was Erwin, Jean is sure of that from the name he reads in the notebooks. About a month later, his fiance had also disappeared, although it was suspected he'd probably killed himself, having been heartbroken over his loss. The original disappearance, though, was a cold case after six months. There was no way to trace him, just as there was no way to trace Marco. 

Perhaps Jean would be marked as a suicide too. 

 

"It's rude to look through other people's things." 

He jumps, heart almost burst through his chest. "Shit!" he exclaims, the books dropping to the floor with a wet thud. "I-- I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"Didn't think I'd come back? No. Neither did I. That was a really stupid thing you did back there. Could have got yourself - and me - killed. And I've got things to do, so being dead is kinda not what I want." the man says, still breathless. 

"You are dead, though." Jean points out. "Outside the tree... In the real world. They think you're dead." 

He's certain that the man in front of him, silver eyes and straggly black hair, is a match to the last photo published of the teacher's fiance. 

"And I intend to keep it that way, until I find him." Levi grumbles, gathering up his things and pushing them under the pillow. He looks almost feral, crouched down in his ragged clothes and bloodstained skin. There's a gleam in his eyes that Jean doesn't like the look of at all. 

"I'm looking for someone too." Jean replies. 

Levi looks at him, and it's the empty gaze of someone who is trying to keep their emotions locked away. "I know."

"You do? Is he here? Have you spoken to him?" 

He shakes his head. "I just figured... Not many people wander down the hole unless they're looking for someone."

"But is there anyone else down here? A boy, maybe, with freckles, and... uh, brown hair. He's quite tall and--"

"Shut up." he grunts, teeth gritted and fists clenched. "Just, shut up." 

Jean curls up a little. The knife is still in Levi's hand. 

"I don't want to talk about lost people anymore." he offers, the anger muffled in his tone. 

"Then what do you want to talk about?" 

Levi shakes his head again. "I don't." 

 

Jean isn't sure he wants to venture outside again without Levi, and there's no possible way of doing so until the man in question looks ready to talk again. 

He's sat there, a scowl on his face as he scribbles on a hand-drawn map. It shows the town, or at least what resembles the town, large sections blacked out and marked as no-go areas. 

Jean wonders if Marco is in one of those dark areas. 

There are other parts marked. Red is unsafe, blue is safe, and green is empty. Empty of Erwin, he supposes. 

"You know, in the description they gave... Uh, well... I don't think he was eaten." Jean tries, thinking back to the measurements the police gave out when the search for Erwin was still happening. "And if this place is a... a dark version of the town, then who's to say that there's not more than just the town. He could be anywhere... Anywhere safe, that is." 

Levi shoots him a look. "As much as I appreciate your... kind words," he drawls, sarcasm dripping from each and every syllable, "I know what I'm doing. He's here, and I know it. When you lo-- Some people, you just know where they are."

Jean nods. "I know Marco is here too." 

 

From Jean's house is a path that leads round past a square of play park, and down a small hill. It runs past the school and then on to the main shops and amusements. 

It's filled with all sorts of nooks and crannies where Marco could be hiding, where the creatures could also be hiding. 

He goes alone. 

Each step he takes is one more closer to potential death, closer to finding Marco. 

Levi had given him a baseball bat covered in nails, "rusty too, so they'll do way more damage".  He swings it now, half hoping he'll never have to put that practice into action. 

He edges past the play park, sees the swings moving in the slow breeze. If the colours were gone from the real forest outside of the tree, then there was no such thing as colour inside it. It was like the picture of an old TV, grey and static, grainy lines running past his vision. 

Marco isn't there. 

The school stands, foreboding, in the thundering clouds above, and Jean almost tiptoes down the steps to the front gate. He climbs over it, running for his life when he notices that the lights are on in one of the classrooms near the front. 

The door is open, with no one inside to lock the bolts. He pushes through the cloakroom into the classroom itself, feels shivers run down his spine as he sees four of the creatures feasting on a lump of flesh. Whether or not it was once human, Jean can't quite tell. He sees clouds of blood billowing out from it, the fat and skin writhing in the air as the rows upon rows of needle-like teeth shake and pull at it. 

He doesn't dare interrupt the feast, for fear he'll be next. Backing away slowly, instead, Jean hopes they can only sense fast movement. 

The rest of the school is really quite empty, and he marvels at how whatever force is behind it all managed to recreate it so accurately. Each detail is as he remembers, even down to the small janitor's cupboard hidden behind a line of lockers. That was where he took Marco's first kiss. 

When he returns to the tent where Levi stays, he begins his own map. 

 

A week has passed, and all he has is a small section of it marked off as free of Marco. 

Perhaps his memories are wrong, though, and the strings of sinew and bone were human after all. Perhaps the skin was tanned a deep brown, and the spots of blood were really freckles. 

He wonders whether those are thoughts that plague Levi often.

"I want to head back to the school again." he declares, circling off the danger zone he'd seen last week. 

"Why do I need to know?" Levi questions, head buried deep in his own map. 

"Because I need your help. I need to keep the demons away from me while I search the whole place." 

Jean had noticed that the school was one of the few places on Levi's map that had no markings whatsoever. When questioned, Levi had simply said he'd never thought to look in there, though Jean suspected it was probably down to a lack of ability and certainty of safety. 

With two of them, though, there might have been twice the risk, but there was also twice the force. 

 

He scours the first of many classrooms with an enthusiasm he's not sure he'll be able to keep up for the rest of the day. Each little thing is checked and double-checked, for clues of Marco's presence. 

 

He wants to see his stupid, bubbly handwriting again, see those circles that doubled as the dot of an 'i', the flick of his 'l' and the twist of his 'y'. 

He wants to see something, even if it is an unusually human bone. 

"There's nothing in this classroom. We've got about a hundred more to go." Levi says, flicking through the stack of papers on the desk. When he thinks Jean isn't looking, he stuffs one into his pocket. 

"I know,but--" Jean groans, through gritted teeth. "Ugh. I just need more time."

Levi puts a hand on his shoulder. "You'll have time, I promise. Just not here. There's nothing here."

Jean stands from his place in the corner, and follows Levi through to the next classroom.

They make it through the whole of the left arm of the school by what must be just after lunchtime. 

 

"He's an art teacher, you know." Levi says, stuffing another protein bar in his mouth. He eats with all the energy of a starved child, and all the table manners of one too. 

"Who-- Erwin?" Jean asks. Levi nods.

"My mother... When she first met him, she thought he was a science teacher, maths teacher, something like that. He's a smart guy, well spoken and very... logical, I guess. But art's his passion, not anything else. And he enjoys helping the kids. I wanted kids with him." he continues, and Jean notes the present tense, notes the red rimmed eyes as they speak. 

"Marco isn't creative at all." he says. He feels like he has to add to the conversation, and the only thing in his life worth talking about is Marco. "He's such a nerd... I used to tease him about it all the time. He wants to do something to do with rocks, I think, like... geology. I always said that he could model or do whatever he wanted, he has the looks for it. But being a dork is his passion and I loved him-- I love him for it."

Levi nods. They eat the rest of their meal in silence. 

 

It's nearing midnight before they've finished both the left and right arms of the school. They still need to search the outside building, the hall, and corridors in the centre. Jean isn't sure he wants to visit the janitor's cupboard again with Levi. It's not that he thinks they'll find anything, he simply doesn't want to show any emotion. No more than he showed at lunch, anyway. 

Each classroom seems to be an identical copy to the one Jean remembers from the real one. The only differences are the colours - or lack thereof - the strange ash that seems to be a constant in the air, and the vines or plant-like limbs that have wrapped themselves around most parts of the school. 

And the membranes that stretch across the doorways, hang saggy between the windows. It's as though a giant had been skinned in this anti-world, and the remnants of its body had been left to become part of the environment. 

As they walk slowly down the main corridor, towards the hall, Jean is certain he sees someone in one of the smaller rooms. He stops dead in his tracks, feels the flip of his stomach and numb hands. 

"What?" Levi asks, turning to face the very same window that Jean can't tear his gaze from. "There's no one there, it's a trick of the light."

Jean shakes his head, feels the certainty forming in his gut. Even if it isn't Marco, maybe it's someone who can tell him where he is. 

He reaches out to the door handle, but just before he can turn it, just before he can reach in and potentially find some closure, he hears the screech of hell.

"Get in there, quickly. Shut the door behind you, and hide." Levi pulls out his knife, grabbing the bat from Jean's hands. "Go."

He does as he's told, half-slamming the door shut behind him, and falling over his own feet as he scrambles towards the cupboard in the back corner of the room. He barely sees anything else in the room, he just knows he needs to drag his lead-heavy limbs as fast as he can to get some semblance of safety. 

He doesn't see he's not alone. 

 

There's very little air inside the cupboard that isn't warm and already tainted by Jean's breath. He has to breath through his mouth so he won't be able to smell the almost rotten scent of it, and although there are far more important things to think about, he feels almost ashamed that if - no - when he finds Marco, it will be probably with bad breath and teeth covered in plaque. His hair is also rather greasy, it itches and feels as though it's moving all on its own. 

Jean considers what his life has been up until this moment, wonders if he's worth risking a life for. Levi has a mission similar to his own, though he is far more capable. Perhaps Jean should leave the cupboard, and throw himself in front of the beast, or beasts, to allow Levi his time to search. 

But Marco... 

Marco wouldn't approve of something like that. And he can't die without knowing what happened to him, either. 

He feels his muscles cramping, the space he'd squeezed into is too tight to fit his long limbs into properly. 

A miracle arrives in the form of a kick on the door, it squeaks open and there stands Levi, hand outstretched and covered in blood. 

"You need to close your eyes. Do it." he commands, and Jean obeys. He squeezes his eyes shut, his senses working harder than they ever have before. It isn't that he doesn't trust Levi, it's simply the threat of death is too much for his body to ignore. 

He smells the rot of flesh, thinks of the hunk of meat that he'd seen before, how he'd thought that perhaps the strings of sinew and bone were human after all, perhaps the skin was tanned a deep brown, and the spots of blood were really freckles.  

He opens his eyes too soon. 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i think this is of the genre 'schrodinger's death'. is jean a reliable narrator?? is the dead body really marco's?? it's up to you!!  
> all theories are very much appreciated.


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